Inner Voices of the Fog: A Reflection on A Foggy Tale

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Guest Contributor: John Lee 李榮恩 A Foggy Tale, 《大濛》is set during Taiwan's White Terror era, the long stretch of martial law from 1947 to 1987 during which thousands of Taiwanese were imprisoned, disappeared, or executed under the Kuomintang government for suspected communist sympathies or political dissent. It is the period in which my grandparents grew up. And yet, growing up myself, I never heard them speak of it. The fog of that era was not only cinematic. It was real, and…

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A Little Bit Sweet: A Taiwanese American Documentary About Grief, Family, and Hot Sauce

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When Sophia Chang visited the BB Hot Sauce factory in Tainan, a family business she only learned about during a family trip to Taiwan in 2015, she was surprised to walk into a large facility, having pictured at some point a mom and pop operation out of a family residence. Then: there it was, the very bottle of BB Chili Sauce at a table at a night market. Then: another chili sauce sighting in her in-laws kitchen cupboards. Most everyone she encountered in Taiwan seemed to recognize and know this…

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Kaila Yu’s FETISHIZED: Community Discussion Guide

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[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Screenshot from Anna Wu![/caption] We had such a wonderful, nourishing discussion on January 18 to kick off our 2026 Taiwanese American Memoir Book Club! Below are questions inspired by our conversation to help spark further discussion/reflection. We encourage you to form your own reading groups to explore these texts in community. To view our full schedule and RSVP to future discussions, please visit our 2026 Taiwanese American Book Club…

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Creating an Archive Through Sound and Community: A Conversation with Angie QQ, Curator of SOUNDS OF TAIWAN

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When “Family Time” by Lim Giong starts playing over the speakers at Chao Bar & Record Store in Taipei, it feels a little like coming home.  This is my fourth year living in Taiwan — as a Chinese American adoptee from New York — but the sound of people chattering softly and spoons clinking in drinks takes me right back to when the island started becoming a place I wanted to stay.  Angie QQ, founder of East Never Loses and A Pure Person Press, created SOUNDS OF TAIWAN with Taiwanese…

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Understanding Our Parents Through the Stories They Never Told: A Glimpse Into 1970s Rural Taiwan

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As the year comes to an end, families in the U.S. are probably entering a season filled with gatherings, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and everything in between. I imagine it feels a bit like Lunar New Year in Taiwan. I often wonder: when you get together with your family, do you feel closer to them, or somehow even farther away?  My name is Jane. I’m a Taiwanese born and raised, and throughout my life I walked the classic Taiwanese path: school, cram school, more school, getting punished by…

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The Surreal, Dehumanized, and Fractured: A Conversation with Elaine Hsieh Chou

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Published earlier this year, Elaine Hsieh Chou’s second book, Where Are You Really From, is a stunning short story collection that keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. From a world in which men can purchase mail order brides to a deceptively playful story about a dollhouse, this book demonstrates Chou’s ability to explore themes of violence and desire, representation and family bonds, and the intersection of art, sexuality, and identity.  Today, I’m honored to speak with Chou about…

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We Build Museums So We Can Someday Stop Building Cages: A Taiwanese American Reflection from the Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park

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This essay was originally written for my personal newsletter, but I hope its reflections on heritage, human rights, and ethical imagination may resonate with the broader Taiwanese American community. 🫶 Hello from Taipei, where I’ve collected so many museum pamphlets and cute paraphernalia that I am tempted to start a junk journal (though now that I think about it, this Substack is an intellectual junk journal of sorts). I’m so grateful to have also spent time this week with people I’ve…

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Shared Meals, Fieldwork, Storytelling: Building Transnational Solidarity Through the Taiwan Food and Farm Delegation

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For many in diaspora, food is one of the most tangible threads connecting us to ancestry, memory, and land. Yet the pathways that sustain those connections—seed to harvest, recipe to ritual—are often complicated or even fractured by displacement, colonization, and distance.  It is along these fractured, but fertile, lines that Taiwanese American community organizers Li Schmidt and Kimberly Chou Tsun An have envisioned and built the Taiwan Food and Farm Delegation, a pilot project uniting…

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Ghost Month in Taiwan: When the Gates of the Underworld Open

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It is currently Ghost Month in Taiwan, also known as 中元節 (Zhōngyuán Jié / Ghost Festival), a traditional holiday observed on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month, usually in August. It is believed that during this time, the gates of the underworld open, allowing spirits to roam the human world. The festival has roots in Taoism, Buddhism, and folk beliefs. In Taoism, it is tied to the birthday of the deity Dì Guān (地官大帝), who pardons sins. In Buddhism, it corresponds to Ullambana,…

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“To write is to share; to share is to be seen”: Jane Kuo, in conversation with Rebecca Yang

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As a daughter of Taiwanese immigrants growing up in suburban Los Angeles County, I didn't expect to find any literature that reflected my niche in life. That is, until I found Anna Zhang in Jane Kuo's books In the Beautiful Country and Land of Broken Promises. Anna is a middle schooler who immigrates to the United States (which she calls "The Beautiful Country") for the prospect of a better life. Instead, what she finds is a vastly different community---one with unfamiliar faces, discrimination,…

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